


Spin

by time_transfixed



Category: Town of Salem (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, I Don't Even Know, I'm Sorry, M/M, Minor Suicidal Thoughts, kind of, tbh most of the other characters tagged end up being just background
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-08 19:02:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16435061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/time_transfixed/pseuds/time_transfixed
Summary: Some things are just not meant to beThe Investigator, the Consigliere, and a thousand what-could-have-beens.





	Spin

The story starts something like this:

1.  
a young aspiring Investigator, fresh faced and bright eyed, with a glowing report card of all As, the highest praises from all his professors and all the books in the world locked safely in his skull. 

He’s very well connected, the Spy is a childhood friend, already well established in the forces; his father the town’s retired Sheriff and his mother an Investigator herself.

He comes in through the door with a beaming smile and an earnest face, a brand new carpet bag to hold all of his treatises and ideals in, and his father’s old Sheriff badge a comforting weight in his pocket. 

The new Sheriff smirks at him as she directs him to his station, “Good luck with your new partner.” Then she leaves him stranded there in the hubbub of a busy building, and the Investigator tries to tune out the quiet murmur of discussion and go about like he knows what he’s doing. 

“Who are you?” says the voice of a monster. 

He looks up abruptly. “Oh, you must be the partner I was assigned to.” 

“Another one?” 

“Um. I guess?” The Investigator tries to ignore the rumors he’s heard about this particular member of the investigative forces and what the comment of “another one” must entail. 

The Consigliere finally deigns to lift his head from his notebook, eyeing him with an air of almost casual disdain. “Well, come on then.” 

The Consigliere is indeed a monster of a partner. Strangely enough, the Investigator finds he can’t stay away. He’s brilliant at what he does, which happens, more often than not, to be something _illegal._

“You're an absolute idiot,” the Consigliere tells him, without any real bite in his voice, “how the hell do you fuck up the differences between a lynching-obsessed maniac, the town’s Sheriff, and a supernatural creature that transforms into a wolf at the sight of the full moon? Especially when said full moon is high in the sky. You should be finding loose hairs all over at that point.” 

“People cover their tracks well,” he holds his hands up in surrender. “And I don’t just casually break in like it’s no big deal like you do.” 

The Consigliere snorts. “The Mafia are killing us, thus they pose a huge threat to the order and stability of the town. A little violation of privacy is warranted.” 

“It’s a bad idea; nobody should be able to so casually bend the law. You start letting private investigators break into people’s homes for evidence and then the whole structure falls down.” 

***  
“So I assume you’ve already applied for a transfer then?” The Consigliere is going through that weekly phase where he gets the obsessive need to re-file all of their papers. He barely even glances up as the Investigator approaches with a mug of coffee in each hand, carefully stepping around the half-made piles of paper. 

“Um,” the Investigator says eloquently. “No?” 

“Don’t be silly,” the Consigliere takes the proffered coffee absently with a quiet murmur of thanks. “Everybody does.” 

“I’m not?” He says weakly. “Do you want any help with that?” He says after another long pause, nodding at the paper trail on the floor. 

“No,” the Consigliere says distractedly, “You’d do it wrong. Everyone always does it wrong and messes it up, which is why I have to re-organize so often.” 

“Oh.” He turns to leave. 

“Or- I guess you could file that pile over there that I’ve already sorted,” the Consigliere gestures vaguely to the piles behind them. 

“Alright. Um - I guess I’ll just start with this one then?” He flips quickly through the stack and opens the file cabinet. 

The Consigliere gives a sharp intake of breath, “No, that one goes-” 

“Over here,” The Investigator bursts out, slightly embarrassed the moment it leaves his mouth at the volume. He quickly closes the cabinet and opens the one on top, which is already half full with folders and tabs. 

“Hm.” The Consigliere looks at him intently, eyes boring into him. “Guess you’re not such an idiot after all.” 

That’s the highest compliment the Consigliere is capable of giving. 

***  
“You’re filing your reports in the wrong place,” the Investigator says sharply. He has no idea where it comes from, and by the taken aback look on the Spy’s face, neither does he. 

The Spy shrugs. “Doesn’t seem to matter that much.”

“Well, it does to some people.” By this point he’s deflated slightly, that sudden sharpness lost to him. But still, now that he’s said it he might as well push on, and maybe this’ll reduce the frequency with which his partner feels the need to tear apart their folders and documents re-organizing them. 

“Oh,” the Spy snorts, “never mind. I see how it is. Here, you can file it then if it matters that much to your boyfriend.” He shoves his report on recent Mafia movements in the lower sectors into the Investigator’s hands and turns his back. 

“He’s not my boyfriend,” the Investigator says to empty air. 

***  
“What are we doing here again?” The Investigator squashes the urge to glance over his shoulder again as the Consigliere checks his watch and leans against the wall opposite the building they’re currently loitering outside. 

“I told you, we’re here to meet a contact of mine. Honestly, I should get a partner that actually listens to what I tell them the first time.” 

The Investigator wisely chooses not to say anything about how likely the Consigliere is to stumble across another partner who’s willing to put up with him. “You couldn’t have told them to meet us somewhere in a part of town that’s not crawling with Mafia spies?”

The Consigliere shrugs. “That’s part of the appeal.” 

And somewhere between late nights spent arguing over who was going to go refill their coffee cups and hunting down the entire goddamn Mafia, they become more than just colleagues, more than just two lonely Investigators just trying to help the town. 

The Consigliere has never been a philosopher, and the Investigator would’ve never thought him a dreamer. Yet that’s what the Consigliere is; that’s the reason why they sit on the hilltop overlooking the town. He can see the steeple of the old church from here, towering over thatched rooftops and cobblestone roads. 

“Maybe there’s a little idealism left in me yet,” the Consigliere confesses, his grip on the Investigator’s hand tightening almost involuntarily. “But I can’t...I can’t willingly be a part of this town anymore. It’s not really a democracy if people are just being manipulated into following a few members of the town now is it?” 

“Where will you go? What will you do?” He asks, hoping the other won’t catch on to how distraught he is. He couldn’t possibly be considering defection from the town right? That way they couldn’t be together anymore, would have to walk their opposite paths. 

“I’m not sure,” he admits, “probably retire and become just another ordinary citizen. I’ve always wanted to open up a bookstore. This changes nothing for us, of course.” He adds almost as an afterthought. 

That’s a lie. It changes everything. 

In the end the Consigliere stands serenely on the stand, unmoving in the face of death, the way the Spy rages at him as he accuses him of being a member of the Mafia. 

Something desperate spills from the Investigator’s lips, something between _that’s not true it can’t be true_ and _please you can’t hang him._

When the votes come through that find him guilty, the Consigliere tosses his Last Will and Testament to the wind and drapes the noose around himself like it’s nothing more than a particularly nice piece of jewelry. 

The Mayor asks if he has any regrets, last words to fling at the feet of the townspeople. 

The Consigliere looks at the Investigator then, that odd, rueful sideways smirk stealing across his face. “Just the one. But if I had the chance to do it all over again, to reject the Mafia’s offer of true justice, I would change nothing.” 

2.  
a peculiar child and a peculiar man, who says little if anything at all, who declines the offer of drinks from the Spy and sits alone in the corner of the bar with a little dogeared notebook. 

It’s the natural order of things, to let go, to forget the sorrows of one life and embrace the next one. So that’s what he does. And then there’s the Consigliere. 

“Who are you? Do I know you?” 

There the ghost of yesterday stands, in a light jacket that hangs loosely around him, the same piercing eyes on a slightly different face. The Consigliere looks thinner, he thinks, and there’s the barely noticeable shades of darkness underneath his eyes. 

“No,” he says, when he realizes that he hasn’t said anything yet. “I don’t think we’ve met.” 

The Consigliere huffs quietly to himself. “Sorry about that. I usually don’t get these things wrong, and I thought I remembered you from somewhere.” 

“Well, it's a small town,” he offers, “you must’ve seen me around despite the two of us never meeting.” 

“I suppose.” The Consigliere’s tone is flat, dull; he clearly doesn’t quite buy it but doesn’t have the time or energy to spend pursuing it further. 

But the Jailor has a nice smile, and the smirk on the face is almost enough like that of another’s that he takes the man’s hand, answers his questions and allows himself to know another.

The Jailor gathers information too, through the cock of a pistol and the cold iron bars of a cell. He’s dark-haired and dark-eyed, more than a few shades removed from flaming red, but in the darkness of the bedroom it hardly matters. 

The Investigator still dreams of the Consigliere, half remembered glimpses and flashes that he forgets when the sun rises. Sometimes he wakes up with his cheeks wet with half-dried tears and hastily dries it off before the Jailor can notice. 

He wonders if the Jailor can tell that he thinks of another man when he’s with him. 

Then the Sheriff discovers a member of the investigatives to be a mobster. It’s almost deja vu. 

“Wait, you can’t execute him-” He grabs the Jailor by the wrist. He knows how he sounds right now, unhinged, perhaps a Mafia member trying to save one of their own from the Jailor’s blade. 

“He’s Mafia, from what I’ve been told by the Sheriff, who already has the backing of most of the credible town members. Why shouldn’t I execute him?” 

“Because I-“ The Investigator thinks about how to phrase this so he doesn’t sound crazy and fails. 

_Because I think I might have loved him once._

_Because I think I still might._

Instead he shakes his head, “never mind; I don’t know what got into me.” 

Another lie. It’s easy enough. 

The Jailor gives him an odd look. “Well, if that’s all, then I’ll be on my way. See you later.” He presses a kiss on the Investigator’s cheek and leaves, and the Investigator tries not to feel dirty, tries to resist the urge to go scrub his cheek. 

He wonders if it is rational to mourn a man you only knew in dreams. 

3.  
a fool who can’t let go 

Somebody else does the work for him. 

“Sorry about this,” the Consigliere says, the gun in his hands shaking almost imperceptibly. “But nobody else would do the dirty work, and I can’t let you survive to track down any of our other remaining members..” 

He stares down at the barrel of the gun blankly. “Fair enough. Just tell me one thing. _Why_?” 

“You’ll have to be more specific.” the Consigliere’s finger hovers idly over the trigger. 

“The Mafia. Why did you join them?”

“Justice. Democracy. Maybe I just liked dabbling on the wrong side of law too much.” The Consigliere shrugs, “I’ve made my choices, why doesn’t matter that much.” 

He leans forward, presses his lips against the Consigliere’s, feeling the barrel of the gun dig into stomach. It’s hot and messy and oh-so-unrefined, a dead man’s last desperate act before the end, a hollow hope that maybe the Consigliere will remember, that lifetime they shared so long ago when both of them were members of the town. 

The Consigliere pushes him away abruptly, and then a bang rings in the air. The smoking gun falls to his side, rattling almost inaudibly, and the Investigator slips back into the sweet embrace of death.

4.  
a child who thinks flipping the board over in frustration will be enough to rewrite the rules of the game, a man who wants to reclaim another what could have been 

“We should get married.” He says, as they sit there on the same damn hilltop, lying in the same grass, looking at the same stars. They wink down at him, mocking him, and the Investigator feels the familiar feel of bile rising in his throat. 

The Consigliere laughs, bitter and sardonic yet full of life. “Did you come up with that one by yourself?” 

“I’m serious.” He runs his fingers idly through the other’s hair. “We could pack our belongings, get ourselves out of here and leave behind this godforsaken death trap..” 

“Don’t be an idiot,” the Consigliere says, rolling his eyes, “Nobody just up and leaves town and escapes the trials like that. There’s only two ways out of this town - a bodybag or an actual victory.”

“Who knows? We could meet here tomorrow, same time, and just leave. What’s stopping us?” 

“Loyalty perhaps? We are leaving them all to die.” 

“Does it matter?” He presses on desperately, “They had their chances to leave, to walk out too, and what’s the point of staying here and joining them?” 

The Consigliere breaths a quiet sigh. “I’m yours.” 

And of course things could never work out like that, not in this town. 

5.  
a man, more bitter still, who contemplates using the old gun in his drawer that as an Investigator he isn’t legally allowed to have more often than he should. A man who doesn’t want to live, but finds a reason, perhaps the wrong reason, to stay alive

Some lives the Consigliere is the Godfather, giving orders and committing murder and losing himself in the process, an endless list of names on the paper and it’s not enough; the town outnumber them ten to one and he can’t even remember why he wanted to join the Mafia. 

Some lives the Investigator is a different role, a Psychic, who has “visions” that come in the night and whisper in his ear of who’s good and who’s bad when in reality he already knows who everybody is.

And the lifetimes mesh into one singular storm, the Consigliere becomes this untouchable god that he can never have, and he becomes ash and dust with every breath that he takes. 

Do the townspeople know that they are doomed to make the exact same mistakes as they did, over and over and over? The very thought of it makes the Investigator sick. 

***  
“What are you?” The Consigliere sounds so angry, so irritated; the Investigator thinks. It’s so surreal to realize that the man had once used the exact same tone to yell at him about botching the differences between a Godfather and an Arsonist. 

“There’s always something about you, something I can’t put my finger on. So tell me, what kind of secrets are you hiding?”

The Consigliere has always prided himself on his knowledge. It must physically hurt for him to not know in this situation, and that’s a small comfort. 

“I know you’re an Investigator, have been working as one for six, no seven years now. I know your daily routines and the places you frequently visit, the fact that you go into the back of the bar and sit there and do nothing else on one particular day of the month without a fail; I know every single damned place from which we could ambush and kill you. But I don’t know what you are.” 

“I’m the Investigator,” he says. “And that seems like a serious case of stalker behavior.” 

The Consigliere looks about to scream in frustration. “I’m well aware of that! That’s not what I’m asking. What, are you some kind of idiot?” 

“Something like that. That’s what someone I once knew told me.” 

“Hm, fine. Don’t give me a straight answer. I suppose I just need to dig deeper; everybody inevitably slips up with these things.” 

“I hope you do,” he murmurs under his breath as he eyes the Consigliere’s retreating shadow. 

He’s been here before, he thinks suddenly, as he runs his hand over the peeling paint on the side of the wall, one of those alleys in town leftover from when it was first built, abandoned and left to fall into ruin by town members who had more important things to worry about than renovating buildings.

They had pursued a suspect down here once, in the muggy summer air, faces flushed with adrenaline and the thrill of the chase. The Consigliere had a lovely smile. 

The Investigator goes home and tries to scrub that smile from his brain. 

***  
After one too many times of getting jumped by the Serial Killer in similar such situations, knowing when someone is following him becomes almost instinct. 

“Hey, you know. You should probably stop with this stalking thing. I could actually get the Sheriff to arrest you, if not for that than for your affiliation with the Mafia.” 

“If you had wanted to do that, you would’ve already done it.” The Consigliere holds up an old tattered notebook. “Found this in your house last night. Care to share with the class?” 

“So, that’s breaking and entering, being a mob member, and stalking a town member on your record.” 

The Consigliere ignores him, flipping through the notebook before continuing, “you know, you have the names of most of the Mafia listed here plus some of the Neutrals. Well done indeed; one has to wonder why the town’s still desperately lynching its own members trying to find them.” 

“That’s none of your business, and I’d like that notebook back now if you don’t mind.” 

The Consigliere’s smile tightens. “Sorry, but I can’t leave something this incriminating around for someone to find, even if you’re not willing to act on the information for whatever reason.” He rips the page out of the book and tosses it back to him. 

“So what’s a loyal member of the town doing withholding information from the town?’ 

_If I told them they’d ask where I got that information._

“Guess I’m not such a loyal member of the town after all. Are you sure I’m really Investigator?” 

“I’m never wrong on these sorts of things,” the Consigliere bristles. He had always had a particular hatred for questions of his competency; the Investigator wonders when he’d forgotten that. 

“No I suppose you’re not.” 

“What was that?”

“Never mind.” 

***  
“You could try to wait to break in after you were sure I left the house.” 

“No,” the Consigliere says, opening the drawer closest to him, “I don’t think that would make much of a difference.” 

“I could actually call law enforcement.” 

“You could.” The Consigliere closes the drawer and opens the next. He holds up the old illegally kept gun the Investigator keeps in the bottom right drawer that he pretends he doesn’t know about. “Not much of a stickler for conventions are you? I’d call you an idiot again, but there’s something more to that than just idiocy.”

The Investigator feels a grin stealing across his face. He hasn’t felt this alive in years, and the Consigliere makes for a terribly intoxicating drug. “You make it your job to know these things yes? So why don’t you tell me?” 

6.  
a man who forgets 

There’s a newcomer at the bar tonight, a man who he’s seen of course but never really exchanged words with.

Normally the Investigator doesn’t get much company beyond maybe the Mayor and a couple of members of the investigative forces on a particularly productive night. It’s a Monday night after all, and everyone’s been working late. He nods to the bartender and opens his notebook, frowning at the frayed edges where the pages have been torn out, which funnily enough he couldn’t remember doing anymore. He’s out of ideas to write down for who’s who. 

The newcomer flags the bartender down and orders a drink before sitting down at the table behind him. There’s the telltale click of the lighter as he puts a cigarette to his lips. 

“You smoke?” he asks suddenly, unbidden. He immediately regrets it afterwards, that stupid presumptuousness of the question that implies he ever knew who the stranger was. 

“Bad habit,” the man shrugs, “the good news is I probably won’t live long enough to regret it.”

“Good news?” 

“It’s a relative term.” 

7.  
a broken fragment of that bright-eyed boy whose lover lies equally broken on the floor, just a little fragment of a larger what-might-have-been 

“So it’s you,” breathes the Consigliere, “What are you doing here? Never mind that. I’m- I’m so sorry. I was a fool for choosing to leave you, that first time. I’ve cursed us all.” 

He’s crying now, hot trails of water, and he can’t stop, not when there’s red pooling in equal measure. “It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s all going to be fine.” 

The Consigliere reaches one hand up weakly to clasp his cheek. “Don’t cry idiot. I’ll see you again one day.” 

“I thought you loved idiots.” He whispers, trying to wipe the tears away. 

“Just the one. Some days I don’t know why I bother.” 

8.  
an idiot who still believes in hoping against hope and thinking the outcome will be different this time

“Who are you?” asks the young boy with the red hair. 

“An idiot,” says the boy who is not really a boy at all. 

And perhaps fate will indulge them with a better ending this time.

**Author's Note:**

> Regrets? Yeah I have those...a lot of those...Excuse me while I go bang my head on the keyboard some more. 
> 
> Well, I started writing this with the thought that holy crap there isn't any consig/invest fic on here. So of course I had to write a consig/invest fic where I basically recycle a bunch of romance cliches. 
> 
> And tbh a big part of the whole annoying format is just so I can write random consig/invest snippets that come into my head with minimal plot or character development. Some of them you can see I didn't bother writing endings. I'm not even quite sure if calling this reincarnation is accurate? You could technically think about it like some kind of infinitely recursive timeloop.


End file.
